RTR01

Routing between subnets and access to the Internet (required for Windows Activation) is handled by RTR01, a Windows server running Routing and Remote Access (RRAS). This should be the first virtual machine to be built and configured as machines on the other subnets will need this server in place for them to successfully build.

This virtual machine will have 5 network adapters, one on each network. The build will create a basic Windows server. To configure the server you will need to run some PowerShell as well as manually configuring RRAS.

In this first installment we’ll work on getting the foundation set for building up the lab. We’ll configure the virtual networks, the host networking and get our MDT environment installed and configured. We are going to use a number of tricks that I’ve learned from others.

Setting up a lab can be a pretty time consuming project. A number of people, myself included, have created various hydration kits in an attempt to make it easier. One thing that they many have in common is that they use the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) to generate a large build ISO to be used for building each virtual machine.

Using an MDT build ISO has both advantages and disadvantages. It is portable. It is simple. But it takes massive amounts of disk space and changes are very time consuming.

I’ve updated my MDT Lab Builder with the addition of building a virtual router using Windows Server 2012 R2. I referenced this article from Johan when setting it up. You do not need any additional software, the build of the router will use the same Server 2012 R2 source used in building the other VMs.

The VM (RTR01) will not be joined to the lab domain. I keep it in a workgroup so that it isn’t reliant on the existence of the lab domain and can be used with other projects. The configuration of Routing and Remote Access will allow your lab machines to reach the Internet (as long as your external network has access to the Internet). You can use this VM to explore routing using a Windows Server. You could hang additional virtual switches off of it and configure your own lab network with multiple subnets. Experiment with using DHCP relay on the router. Use Distribution Points in other LANs or even grab an evaluation copy of Nomad Branch from 1E and see how that works.